As Is
by SurelyForth
Summary: Anders shorts for a Dragon Age 2 canon. No set universe, only a set character. Rated T with the potential for M.
1. Misguided

**Note from SF:** _As Is_ will be a collection of short fics about Anders, mostly centering on his various and sundry flaws and how they impact those around him. Some will crop up in other places, but there is really no set universe besides "DA2".

These are being done for the DA2 Anders Prompt Group (.com/group/4488). Join us! Manifestos are welcome!

This week's prompt is _Misguided_.

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><p>After Hawke leaves with the others, Anders slips into an old routine of not sleeping nearly enough, passing the night time hours scrawling out plans and ideas and memories that had flickered at the edges of his consciousness for a lifetime but refused to be allowed full light lest they interfere with his flirting and his fucking and his unceasing plans for the next escape.<p>

Now, with those three things behind him, the memories come unabated. His father's cold fury when confronted with the barn gutted by Anders' hand, _an accident it was an accident and there had been a girl involved but she'd made it out safely, thank the Maker_. His mother's face is stiff with dried tears when he gives her one final kiss good-bye. She can cry no more, exhausted and beyond heartbroken over the loss of her _kürbis_.

There's the first templar that ever captured him. Anders never knew the knight's face, only the echo of his voice and the threatening gleam of his eyes through the slit in his visor. He also recalls the way his gauntlet felt, digging into his bared wrist and how vulnerable he'd been, standing naked in front of the faceless man, his worn farm clothes and belongings stripped away for inspection before he's allowed amongst the other apprentices.

There's being pushed into tubs of frigid water, despite the fact that he could warm it with his hands if they'd only let him. There's being shoved into stone walls by templars twice his size, grown men who harass him and the other apprentices with anonymous immunity. The mages wear thin robes, their faces uncovered. The templars are wrapped in steel and they hide behind it like the cowards they are.

There's half-eaten meals, and assignations interrupted. Anders stands to the side while his partner is berated, or he is berated while his partner stands aside. After, they part in wordless silence and will probably never speak again.

Screwing around in the Tower usually ends in one of two ways.

There's Karl and that goes a little better and lasts a little longer, but Anders is foolish and uses Karl's access as a Senior Enchanter to sneak into Irving's office and steal a few passphrases. It's made even worse by the fact that he only gets as far as The Spoiled Princess before he is caught.

All he does is sleep free for _one_ night, yet they take him with force, his bruised and bloodied body dumped into a holding cell equipped to negate magic. _This_ is his home for three days, until Karl is sent to release him, his blue eyes never quite meeting Anders' as he escorts him to Gregoir's office.

"This is my punishment, Anders," there is no anger in Karl's voice, nor regret. He understands why Anders did it, he understands the younger man's desperate need to just not _be_ there anymore. Had things been different, Anders would have kissed him and maybe even uttered a not quite true _I love_ _you_. Instead he accepts this small offering of personal freedom and swears to the Knight-Commander that Karl had been a means to an end and _not_ a co-conspirator. Both are true, and Anders momentarily despises himself and the position life has placed him in.

There are other beatings, other mages who slip and fall, or jump. But Anders buries and convinces himself that his life isn't terrible. There are still attractive people he hasn't seen, and that one perfect escape is just around the corner.

He _knows_ it.

He's a lover. And Namaya is _useful_. Perhaps it's because she's been passed over so many times in her life, but she clings to Anders when he charms his way past her defenses. She does what he wants and, in the weeks that they are together, he never sees past this willingness to the woman within. He needs her help, not her, and her body is a nice way to pass the time until he manages to get out of Ferelden (unlikely) or is recaptured (so very likely that it actually happens).

There's confinement and loneliness and a year spent forever on the edge of dehydrated starvation. Demons tempt, and demons are rejected. Mr. Wiggums visits, and Mr. Wiggums is slain. He cries, he prays, he imagines in increasingly graphic detail how he'd personally like to kill every templar he sees. But then he cries more because all the templars look the same and he might accidentally kill a decent one during his rampage and, despite what they might say to him (all of them, templar and demon) he is _not_ a monster.

And Namaya is not Karl, she does not _understand_, so she turns on him. _Maybe_. He can't really blame her, when he shows up to their rendezvous months late and with a well-appointed human woman at his side.

He's a lover. His commander is, too, and it's inevitable that they find each other in inappropriate places and delight in doing inappropriate things. She frees him from the Circle and he is so much lighter without chains. He's no longer being shoved, or pushed, or forced to think about what she can do _for_ him, although when she wants to move on...

There's the morning she leaves him, despite the way he pleads. He all but holds her down on the bed they've been sharing for months and, although she made him no promises, he swore he'd heard a few in the way she whispered his name in his ear, the way she always wanted him by her side, no matter the situation.

But she has a country that clamors for her, that depends on her far more than he does. And he'd be a burden in Denerim. No longer a fellow Warden, but her mage lover, the one who'd killed templars in Amaranthine and gotten away with it. So she chooses the king and leaves Anders to be recaptured, reclaimed by the templars with the Warden's support.

It's not what she wants to happen, of course. But it _does_.

He's no longer free.

And the chains...he'd forgotten how heavy they are, how they chafe and dig and scrape at his thoughts. They wear him down to a fine edge, until Justice's offer finds footing in his lonely desperation and it seems like a good idea, the right thing to do...

But it isn't, because of all the things he's _buried_.

Justice hates when he thinks this way, although it is _he_ who forces out these memories. He studies them, searches them for answers and ideas and fuel for their cause. And it works, because every memory is another scratch of Anders' quill as experience becomes reasons, and reasons become an argument and an argument becomes, he hopes, a _movement_.

Perhaps even a revolution.


	2. Cheeky

**Note from SF:** The prompt is _cheeky_, the timing...just before the Deep Roads expedition. Wil Hawke is the protagonist from my DA2 fic _Maps & Legends_. If you're not reading it, all you need to know is that she has a thing for Anders and would probably send an angry manifesto of her own to BioWare if she ever found out they were the reason she has to wait three years for him to come around.

This is a solid T, suggestive but not explicit.

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><p>"Too bad Justice makes Anders such a drag," Isabela props her elbows on Varric's table as she studies the cards in her hand.<p>

She, _obviously_, hadn't addressed him, but Anders feels compelled to let her know that he has _ears_, "I can _hear_ you when you talk, you know. Try as I might otherwise."

"Besides, Anders being a drag doesn't really effect anyone besides Anders," Wil wipes her ale-dampened lips with the sleeve of her tunic. "He wouldn't be here if I hadn't forced him to come."

This isn't _entirely_ true. Anders actually enjoys spending time at the Hanged Man when he's not feeling exhausted and overburdened, which just happens to be his usual state. This evening, however, is a nice one capping off as it did a day of accomplishment for himself and Justice, who has decided to grant him a temporary reprieve from resistance.

"You only say that because you don't know what you're missing," Isabela throws her hand down. Wil's scrunch-nosed look of frustration is enough to indicate the pirate has won another round.

"Maker's breath, Hawke. It's a good thing you've already given me your money for the expedition," Varric, like Anders, is just an amused spectator.

"It's not my fault Isabela cheats," she scowls across the table.

"But it _is_ your fault that you keep expecting me to stop. Anywaaaay," Isabela reshuffles the cards and her chestnut eyes begin to gleam. "Have you ever been with a Grey Warden?"

Leaning back, Wil attempts to hide her face, but Anders sees her cheeks bloom with color even through her hair. "I made out with a man who claimed he was going to _become_ a Grey Warden...but I think he was trying to impress me."

"_I've_ been with a Grey Warden before," Isabela says this as if it's an accomplishment and not a statistical likelihood. "_Two_, actually."

Her gaze, oddly defiant, pins Anders to his seat and he's confused before he remembers a night that might as well have been spent by another man in another life.

_Andraste's ass…I _thought_ she looked familiar._

Wil catches this exchange and confusion chases away the embarrassment before _realization_ brings it back.

"You..." she's struggling to say something that will deflect, something that will distance herself from the implications of Isabela's announcement. "Together, huh?"

"Well..." Isabela rolls her eyes up in consideration. "There were others between us...do you remember that one girl..."

"With the griffon tattoos?" He doesn't _want_ to, really, but of course he _does_. Tattoos were something he'd always appreciated, before. And the Lay Warden, horrible name aside, had worn hers well.

"Yeeeeees," expression gone dreamy, Isabela draws small hearts on the table. "I was definitely with her, and you had that elven girl and the man with the riding crop?"

"I am officially checking out of this conversation," Varric stands, hands up. "I'll pay your tab downstairs, Hawke."

"So you weren't together. Technically," Wil squirms. "Just...adjacent. In some kind of sex orgy. Which, before you call me on it, isn't _that_ redundant. You can have... orgies of violence. And food orgies. Right? _Anyway_," she forces a smile she clearly does not believe in. "Orgy adjacent at most?"

Anders goes to confirm, because it's mostly true and nobody needs to know the details, not least of all _Wil_.

But Isabela's mouth is open and there's just no stopping _that_, "For the most part. Not much contact, although there was one thing I remember." Her voice lowers to a purr, "He does this electricity thing. Too bad Justice is such a drag, otherwise he might be willing to show it off. It was..._nice_."

"_Nice_," Wil repeats, her brow wrinkling for a second before she throws out whatever thought plagues her. "So who was the other?"

"Hold on," Anders interjects. _I should've ended this conversation at _riding crop. "_Technically_, I wasn't a Warden yet."

"So now you have all those skills _and_ stamina?" Isabela's eyes widen at the _possibilities_. "The Hero wore _me_ out, Hawke. And _that_ takes doing."

Wil's curious, her lips twisting into a smirk. "_You_ were with the _Hero of Ferelden_?"

You_ were with the Hero of Ferelden?_ Anders' stomach tightens, although he doesn't know why it surprises him.

"I thought…she and the king?" Wil gathers her belongings, a shift in the tone of the conversation signaling the evening is nearing its end. "Not that _that_ precludes her being with anyone else."

_Definitely not_. Anders finds his feet and hopes that neither woman notices the emotion that must be plain on his face.

"I was her first in awhile...which might explain her fervor," said with a sigh, Isabela makes _fervor_ sound like the filthiest thing _ever_. "A depraved noblewoman with the sex drive of five horny young men is..._highly_ recommended."

"Duly noted," Wil responds dryly, her eyes fluttering towards the ceiling. "So what do we owe you?"

_Dammit, Wil_. Anders had hoped that everyone would forget he'd lost a few hands of Wicked Grace to Isabela earlier in the evening. There's no _way_ he has five sovereigns on him.

Fortunately, Isabela is feeling charitable. Towards herself _mostly_.

"I think you both know what I want," she bounces in her seat. "No tricks though. Just a nice stroll through the Hanged Man."

"Naked?" Wil's unsurprised.

"Naked," Isabela confirms. "It might make Anders loosen up."

Anders doesn't _want_ to loosen up if it means...

Justice stirs inside him.

_You made a wager. _

_I can't believe you're on her side._ He scowls as he pulls his tunic over his head. He's not wearing his usual robes, and he manages to strip down almost as quickly as Wil.

Isabela regards them both, amused. "Off you go, with your skinny asses."

He curls his clothes against his bare stomach and leads the way out, an amused Isabela bounding ahead so she can ogle their descent.

It's not a huge deal, stolling through the tavern. Anders has spent a ridiculous portion of his life naked in front of strangers. Maybe a year ago he'd be mortified to be seen in his current condition, still overly thin from his illness, but now he doesn't really care.

Only when he and Wil are outside of the plaza in front of the Hanged Man, which is blessedly empty, does he confront his true concern.

"I should just start wagering my dignity," Wil's voice is _not_ coming from where it _should_ be, and Anders whirls around to see her strolling away, heading home as if she isn't completely, and adorably, bareassed. "

"Wil!" He jogs after her, which is an awkward affair. "Andraste's tits, what are you doing?"

"Walking?" _What else?_ "It's a nice night."

"You're...I don't think that's the _smartest_ idea."

"I'll get dressed someplace that isn't so exposed," she's strangely matter of fact. "I'd rather be naked and on the move than naked and distracted. Besides, aren't you coming over to get your robes? You can protect me."

"Nakedly?" The idea is amusing.

"Why not?" She laughs, her eyes catching the moonlight and she's just lovely. He's been trying to ignore this fact ever since she'd gotten back from Sundermount, but it seems futile to deny right _now_. "You _are_ equipped with a staff, aren't you?"

It's his turn to chuckle as he pads closer. "Not one that's conducive to magic, I'm afraid. Not that I haven't tried."

"Speaking of trying, and magic," she holds up one hand. "Show me that electricity thing."

"I...," everything above his knees burns as blood rushes to his skin."I can't, Wil. You know that."

"See, now I'm imagining something profoundly and upsettingly filthy," she gives him sad eyes, which are hilarious coming from _her_. "If you want to clear your good name..."

He _does_ want to...badly, in fact. But he's not lying when he says he can't. That man doesn't exist, the one who has brothel orgies and does magicky things during sex with complete strangers. It would hurt him to slip back into that persona, even for a few seconds. And it would only further complicate the situation between them, and he's fallen someplace comfortable with her.

Well, as comfortable as feelings that can never be divulged or acted upon can _ever_ be.

"Fine, fine," she shugs. "For your sake, I hope you're never in a situation where an electricity thing would save your life, if only you could remember how to do it!"

Her voice goes to overdramatic doom. It makes him grin and, before he realizes it, his finger is pressed to her bare shoulder and the tiniest _zot_ of lightning released.

She's unimpressed.

"Bethany does _that_ to get me out of bed," she smirks. "And here I thought Isabela was someone whose judgment I could trust. On matters of sexual deviance, at least."

It's a clear challenge, and he should ignore it. He should put his clothes back on, then tell her to grow up and do the same.

But it's been a nice evening, up until Isabela went and called him a drag...

"Well, it wouldn't be my _finger_…" he trails it along her bicep, which is a horrible idea. "And it wouldn't be your shoulder. Or your _mouth_. Or…"

Her eyes drop without his prompting and he can see the creep of pink across her chest. It makes his tongue ache with instinct. A year ago, he'd be leading her down the nearest alleyway. Tonight…

_Dangerous. _

"Two questions," she peers at him through her hair. "How, _exactly_, does that work in _orgy adjacent _and how come the men _I'm_ with aren't that creative?"

It's his turn to blush and start walking before they can fall into another tense little trap.

"Seriously, though, it's always surprise fingers where I don't want them and sloppy tongues _everywhere_."

"_Wil_," he groans and forces _everywhere_ right out of his head. _This is going to be the longest walk of my life. _The bundle of clothes at his stomach lowers.

"I saw that. Also, nice ass," now she's just being cheeky. "We should play cards together more often."

_The longest. _

"So maybe it's a _little_ chilly to be naked."

_Ever. _


	3. Not Even Jail

**Note from SF:** Written from a prompt submitted by Amondra for a thing I did over on Deviant request was "Anders and Varric in jail." As I was re-reading it, I realized it sorta fits this week's BSN prompt, which is Relief. Since I'm lazy...

And this is just a, um, generic F!Hawke.

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><p>"Just my luck. The one time you actually get <em>caught<em> doing something illegal, I happen to be with you," Anders complains into darkness. He knows the dwarf isn't that far away; he can hear him breathing, he can detect his musky scent of leather and heartwood.

He can sense him _smirking_.

"You know, it doesn't matter if Hawke or Aveline comes to spring us out if a templar finds me first," he can feel his cheeks warming with anger at the idea. "If that happens, I'm taking Bianca and using her to smack my way out of here."

That gets the dwarf's attention.

"Now, now, Blondie. Let's not say things we can't take back," this comes with the subtle creaking of wood as Varric shifts his crossbow in his lap. Or _hugs_ it or _something_. "It's bad enough that her trigger's been broken…that will take me most of a day to fix-"

"Never mind the cost of wining and dining her for forgiveness," Anders' voice rasps. He sounds bitter. He _is_ bitter. Of _course_ the dwarf would be more concerned about his stupid crossbow. What does _he_ have to worry about? The man could confess to mass murder and then talk his way out of punishment… "Andraste's tits, how did I end up in this mess?"

Varric chuckles, and Anders feels a gloved hand pat his forearm.

"This is what happens when you're too scared to make a move. And can I just say that _lurky_ isn't a good look on you?" He snorts. "Besides, I think Hawke prefers a more direct approach."

_Ass_. Anders' mouth opens in mild horror at…

"I _wasn't_ lurking!" He struggles to his feet and it takes a few seconds to steady himself. His legs are cramped from being curled in the corner of their cell, and suddenly the walls feel like they might be _closer_ than they'd been ten minutes ago and if _that's_ happening, then they'll need to call for help and a transfer to a cell that isn't going to crush them within a few hours. Or maybe _he'll_ get a new cell while the dwarf stays in this one…_Let's see if his precious Bianca can save him from a world-class _smushing_._

"Okay. You were _spying_," Varric is non-plussed. "You probably saw her leaving the Hanged Man with the elf, and jumped to conclusions. It's understandable. _They_ have a history, _you_ want to have a future, and-"

"Varric…no," he pleads it, his heart all twisty at the insinuations. He can barely handle the idea of her being with the elf _once_, but for it to happen again? After he'd _left_ her? And as for wanting a future

_It should not be considered._

"No," he repeats it like a prayer. "It wasn't Fenris, or anyone else." Justice isn't technically an _anyone_. "I just…didn't want to bother her. She might have been doing something important like..."

Varric waits.

Anders thinks.

They both know that, as a rule, Hawke's only doing something important when she's doing something with _them_. On her own time she's usually up to nothing more vital or strenuous than reading whatever smut Isabela's tossed her way, or drunkenly penning some of her own. It's endearing, in its way, and _mostly_ understandable.

"Tell her," Varric must be standing now, because his voice is closer to Anders. "Because the longer you _pine_ from a distance, the more money _I_ lose."

"Why am I not surprised?" His head shakes, loose strands of panic-sweat dampened hair striking his cheeks in a most unpleasant way. Between the dirty cellar floor and the filthy prison _everything_, he's in a most besmeared state. It adds another layer of unpleasant to this whole _unpleasant_ situation.

"You're not surprised because we bet on _everything_," Varric's at the front of the cell; Anders can see him in the lines of moonlight that fall between the slotted overhead vent. The broken light gives the dwarf's movements an almost otherworldly quality as he feels out the locking mechanism that stands between them and freedom. "One sovereign says I can get this before the next patrol."

Despite himself and his pitifully empty coin purse, Anders agrees. "You could barely handle the flimsy lock on the cellar door, why would I think tha-"

_*click*_

"_Dammit_, Varric," Anders begins to calculate how many meals he'll be missing because of _this_ stupid wager. Still, there's no small amount of relief in his voice when he says it because sneaking down the narrow prison corridor is _far_ better than being sequestered in one of its narrow cells.

Which, he's decided, _isn't _closing in on him.

Of course, being out of the cell presents its own set of challenges because they're obviously not _guards_ and, if you're not a guard and you're in a prison, chances are you're supposed to be _imprisoned_ and probably _not_ shuffling down a dim corridor with your hand clutching and unclutching and reclutching the shoulder in front of you as the spirit within grows ever more restless.

_This is a place for criminals, the men who take their rest within these walls have committed grave injustices against their fellows._

_Not all of them, some are just trying to survive._

Varric stops suddenly.

Anders' forward momentum nearly results in a two man, one crossbow pile-up, but he's able to keep his balance and avoid such an embarrassing, and noisy, accident.

The men remain suspended in silence until Anders hears what Varric heard…footsteps.

"We should go back to the cell," Varric whispers. "Escaping is a worse crime than the one we committed."

"_You_ committed," Anders hisses back, his feet not wanting to move from their spot because their spot is not in a cell. "_I_ just made the mistake of assuming you knew which access door was Hawke's."

"It was dark," if Varric's capable of blushing, he's probably blushing right now. Anders had never seen him so flustered as he'd been when they'd stumbled out of the servant's passage that they thought for certain would dump them in Hawke's kitchen but had, instead, lead them into the quarters of an elven houseboy and his _very_ attentive mistress. "And all those places look the same. Also, _dark_."

"Too bad it wasn't dark in that _room_," he remains unrelenting. "I say we go forward. The footsteps have stopped…"

It's true. Varric emits a ghost of a sigh and continues forward, leading them through a series of moonlit rooms. Most of the cells they pass are empty, although Anders detects movement from a few. Prisoners _or rats_. His toes curl inside his boots. Rats had been a _thing_ in the Circle jail and he knew from experience that if a man was in one place long enough they'd eventually see him as just another fixture of their surroundings.

"Um-" Varric breaks into Anders' thoughts before he can delve too deeply and _this_ time they don't need to stop and listen to know what's coming.

"Ay! What are you doing here?" The guard asks with less authority and more genuine surprise. He's holding a torch close to his face and, beyond it, it is a broad face sparsely populated by broad, sloppy features. Beyond him is a room that's _not_ full of cells, but of tables pushed against the walls and a few cots.

"You led us to the barracks," Anders doesn't even whisper it. "Fan_tas_tic."

Varric scowls back at him, his shoulders relaxed but his hand tense on Bianca. She's fairly useless as anything but a battering ram, but Anders has seen her _very_ effectively deployed to that end. But from the gleam in the dwarf's eyes, he's not going to risk it.

"Who are you?" The guardsman is still _so_ confused and Varric is able to work with _confusion_ quite nicely.

"My name is Odilo Kondrat, of the Orzammar Kondrats," he coughs softly and leans forward. "This is my _brother_, Cardwin."

_Brother?_ Anders' eyebrows go up in sharp surprise, mimicking the guard's own reaction. But Varric is making mad gestures and trying to distract their potential captor.

"Please…he's sensitive," Varric lowers his voice to a barely audible scrape. "About his _height_."

The guard settles his face into something neutral, although his eyes continue to seek out similarities between the two men.

If Anders thinks about it, there are actually more than a few.

"We were supposed to meet Aveline Vallen," Varric smirks when the guard jumps at the mention of his captain. "But we found ourselves turned around back there at that dark hall that looks like another dark hall and it got…messy. Could you point us to the _right_ hall? We'd prefer the one that leads…_out_."

"Out," he nods and begins pointing. Before he's even done explaining where they need to go, Anders and Varric are scooting on their way and Anders could _almost_ laugh at their luck. That man has to be the _dumbest_ guard in Kirkwall to just let them waltz away without even a-

"_Varric_," Aveline's voice is cold fury and she fills the doorway in front of them, perhaps more unyielding than the stone that surrounds her. "Where do you think _you're_ going?"

"Are they both all right?" Hawke's head pops up over Aveline's shoulder, the flash of a relieved smile visible beyond the red-haired woman's own fierce glare.

It means a lot of things to see her. Mostly it means that they're _definitely_ fine because if Hawke's there, she won't allow Aveline to go too hard on them. But it also means that Hawke had been worried. A _little_, at least, and maybe a _lot_ when Aveline finally finishes lecturing them for being embarassments and shooes them out of the Keep's bowels and into Lowtown.

Hawke walks beside him, occasionally checking his face for bleeding or bruises as Varric explains what happened and how they'd just wanted to surprise her but had, instead, stumbled upon one of her neighbors _in flagrante delicto_ and any hopes of the woman just wanting it all kept a secret disappearing when she'd immediately began screaming for her _husband_ to shout for the _guards_.

"That sounds like something Isabela would write," Hawke is bright-eyed in amusement. "As a matter of fact, I think I have a story very similar to that illustrated in my journal…"

"Well it's not as much fun in reality, Hawke. _Believe me_," Varric stops and sparkles for a minute. "And this is where we must part. Blondie, I'm sorry I got you arrested, but you owe me a sovereign."

He almost tells the dwarf where he can stick that gold but, there's a gloved hand going up to stop him from saying anything _else_ regrettable.

"How's this? You have three days," his eyes move deliberately to Hawke, who's busied herself with smoothing the mussed feathers at Anders' shoulders so he looks slightly _less_ like a _handsome but_ _deranged vulture. _In her words. "Double or nothing."

"_What?_"

"I'll pay, if you can't," Hawke finishes with his pauldrons and offers him a crooked smile. "I probably owe you, anyway. For poultices or something."

She's never owed him money _ever_, but that doesn't matter.

"Okay," Anders is bolstered by a surge of confidence. "It's a deal."

"I _thought_ it might be," head tilting to the side, Varric gives him a significant wink. "Besides, we _both_ know that coin is hardly what matters most."

He leaves them to meander home together, but Hawke watches him go for a few seconds before leading Anders towards Darktown.

"Not even jail can put a dent in that man," she says it with an incredible amount of friendly affection.

"I don't know, he was pretty worried about Bianca," Anders mimes cradling. "She's broke, so you can imagine how hard it was for him."

He expects her to say something about how sad it is that they all speak as if Bianca is an actual person. Instead, she curls her hand around the crook of his arm and holds on.

"I was worried about _you_," her voice is uncharacteristically serious. "If any of them had suspected, or involved the templars…"

He steals a glance, just one, and her face very much conveys something he's been waiting so long to see. Since she seems disinclined to say more, he decides to start making their plans for tomorrow.

"You're volunteering in the morning, right?" He catches her nod from the corner of his eye. "Do you think you could fetch some milk on your way down? And don't worry, I'll be able to pay you back the next time I see Varric."


	4. Magic Exists to Amuse Us

**Disclaimer:** This was written as a trade with Galagraphia, creator of Ms. Rhiamon Amell and artist of unimagineable awesomeness. Since these shorts are random and cross universes...I thought it would work here. And Sullen Teenage Anders is a fairly rare commodity!

* * *

><p>He keeps close to the edges of the corridor, his head down and his eyes focused on a line in the stone that guides his feet along the perpetually curving wall. He knows that when there is a break in the line, as there will be in exactly four and a half steps, he will need to move three feet to the right for ten steps and then three feet to the left to resume his route to the library.<p>

and...step

step

step

st-

"Or you could walk down the hallway like a _normal_ person," the voice grabs him first, and then a firm hand at the back of his neck. "As long as you're not casting spells or slitting your wrists, we're allowed to be here."

Jowan yanks away from Ander's touch, raising his eyes to see the lanky apprentice smirking down at him. Just a few years ago, they'd been the same height...and the same skill level despite Anders being three years older. Coming so late to the Tower had meant that he'd had _no_ training when even the fumbliest of apprentices could light candles at will and summon enough of a breeze to blow a wad of paper across their desk. Now, of course, Anders has the potential to be something great.

Or, in the words of Senior Enchanter Wynne, "Anders is a promising young mage...perhaps the most gifted healer I've ever had the trial of mentoring."

Jowan, on the other hand, can't even inspire _backhanded_ adulation. Things go wrong around him. Very, very wrong.

For example, _this_:

Pulling away from Anders sends them both off balance, causing Anders to drop the slim leather journal that he guards almost as closely as the secrets of his escapes, past and future. Jowan knows that none of those secrets are on the yellowed pages within, but he also knows what sorts of things _are_ and they are _certainly_ nothing that should be seen by eyes other than Anders'.

_Certainly not_. And certainly not by Ser Bran, one of the less devout but mouthier templars who happens to find himself with a slim leather journal beneath his Chantry-issue boot.

"Oh!" He looks from boy to boy, clearly delighting in Jowan's expression of pantswetting fear and Anders' less subtle scowl. "I seem to have stepped in something...on. _On_ something, I mean. Normally, I'd not be interested in the musings of a _mageling_, but _you_..." he points a gauntleted finger at Anders, his mouth curving in a sardonic grin. "You might have something worth saying."

"Really? Then you haven't been listening to your brothers, have you?" Anders snaps, never knowing when to just be quiet. "From the way they talk, they think I should be muzzled...like a _qunari_ mage."

"Yes," Bran's eyebrow shoots up. "Maybe I misspoke. What I _meant_ was, _you_ might have something worth reading. Plans for how you'll escape with the next shipment of enchanted goods to Denerim, a love poem to Enchanter Leorah...a spell by spell breakdown of whatever it was you were doing with that red-haired mage last week in the entropy practice room on the fifth floor."

Anders actually _blushes_ at this.

"I heard everything," the templar's voice is laconic, almost a drawl, and Jowan's curiosity is piqued. "Very clever way to cover up certain _deficiencies_...most would just blame their youth on being so quick on the draw, so to speak." His tone turns thoughtful. "I _could_ probably make a nice pile of coin selling your ideas to a few of the less _creative_ enchanters."

"Anders," Jowan warns brokenly. Bran hasn't so much as looked at him, which is wonderful and typical, but he just knows that somehow he's going to get into trouble.

"How do you know I'm not already supplying the _less creative enchanters_ with tips?" It's a boast, and if Jowan didn't know how the other apprentices spoke of Anders' _talents_, he'd doubt that the admittedly reedy young man at his elbow, with the lanky long strands of dark blond hair and scraggly sad attempt at a mustache, could ever be considered some sort of love guru.

"Nice try," Bran moves his boot and crouches down to claim the journal. In mid-reach, however, his hand is claimed by something else entirely- a scrap of silk that drifts down to catch on one outstretched finger. "What in the Maker's..."

He's interrupted by a second bit of cloth, dark cotton that lands on his shoulder and gets caught on the sharp angle of his pauldron. His head twists and his eyes widen as he realizes what, exactly, it is and how the entire hallway is being blanketed in-

"_Small_clothes?" He flings the pair from his hands and brushes madly at his armor before anyone in authority can see him. It's pointless, as the explosion of unmentionables is continuing unabated, other templars coming in from their postings to see what exactly is causing such an unexpected phenomena.

"Bran!" That's the Knight-Commander storming out of the apprentice's library with a pair of kitty print boxers clinging to his beard.

"Hey! Those are mine!" Anders' lower lip goes out in a pout. "I can't see myself wearing them now that I know where they've _been_," he mutters under his breath.

Greagoir snatches the boxers away, glaring at the apprentices standing shoulder to shoulder in front of Bran.

"Are these?" He growls, his hands batting away an errant satin band that lands on Jowan's chest and turns his cheeks to flame.

"No, Knight-Commander," the younger templar glares at Jowan and Anders even as he defends their innocence. "They were under my supervision when it started."

"Then we need to find who did this," Greagoir's face goes pale from something he sees beyond them, the smell of burning fabric wafting toward them. "And somebody put out that fire!"

In the commotion, nobody notices Anders reclaim his journal, relief loosening his tense features once it's securely in his hands. Without warning, he grabs Jowan's sleeve and tugs him towards a narrow door that Jowan's quite certain he's never seen before. It opens to an even narrower staircase, and Anders leads him up, the entire escape making him feel a bit like a rat skittering between gaps in the walls.

The top opens up to a small balcony of sorts that overlooks the apprentice's library, which seem miles beneath them.

"Maker's breath," Jowan clings to Anders, certain they're both going to plummet to their deaths from this height. "Take me back down!"

"Don't worry, Jowan," a familiar voice comes from behind him, and he whirls around to see the templars' culprit, who is perched on a buttress that offers a view of the corridor below.

"Rhia!" He stumbles towards her, hands going out as if she's the one who's falling and not securely straddling the stone with a bouquet of smallclothes in each fist. "What are you _doing_?"

"Saving Anders from embarrassment," she flings the clothes down towards the tall bookshelves that line the corridor adjacent wall. "And _causing_ some in the process."

Jowan watches in wonderment as the discarded undergarments fall normally towards the bookshelves only to be suddenly flung up and over the wall just before they make contact.

"Glyph of repulsion," she smiles back at them and shrugs. "They were already there, to keep _magelings_ from hurtling themselves from high places out of boredom. I was able to reactivate them."

_Just like that._ Pride radiates from her dark eyes for a moment before she turns and begins to wiggle down from the buttress. Anders watches with no small amount of licentatious interest and Jowan's forced to jab the older boy in the ribs.

"_Ouch!_"

"He can look if he wants, Jowan. He knows better than to try anything after what happened last month," Rhia tosses a few leftover smalls towards him and he grabs at them automatically before realizing what _exactly_ he's grabbing at. She laughs at the ensuing flail as he sends most of them over the balcony railing.

"Uh...what happened last month?" The question is a reflexive one. Jowan _really_ doesn't want to know the answer, especially when he sees the wide smile that finds its way onto Anders' face.

"I'll kill you if you tell him!" Rhia chirps in that delightfully murderous way of hers and Anders offers Jowan his best _you heard the lady_ shrug. "But it certainly didn't involve paralysis, telekinesis, and a certain young templar..."

"Certainly not," Anders' head shakes gravely. "That would be..._cruel_."

"Very," Rhia leans against the balcony, her eyes on the chaos of panties, templars and mortified apprentices below them and a satisfied smirk quirking her lips. Without looking, her hand darts out and she claims Anders' journal, flipping it open to the most recent entry and reading with bemusement. "Funny, you don't have _that_ one in here...but. Oh, _this_ is new. Spellbloom, grease and..._haste_. Interesting choice on that. I hear that haste is the _last_ thing you need added to your repertoire."

Anders snatches his journal back from her and hides it within his robes.

"Like _that_ can keep her out," Jowan rolls his eyes at his best friend and she responds with an arm around his shoulder.

"One of these days I'll get my hands on that thing, and you and I will have an Anders who is completely indebted to us. We can make him do our chores, write our creation essays and play any trick we want."

"Speaking of tricks," Anders jerks his chin towards the satchel Rhia has left behind on the buttress. "You couldn't have possibly done all of that _spur of the moment._ Were you planning something else?"

"Nope," she tilts her head towards the hallway, where a mixed group of mages and templars are gingerly gathering fallen underwear, a serious amount of deliberate eye-contact avoidance going on. "I didn't know where you guys were, and I was bored. Now run along, you two, and think of a way to distract the templars when _I_ get caught. If we time things right, we can keep this up forever."


	5. Leave

**Note from SF:** Written for the BSN Manifestos Welcome group. Prompt is Leave.

This takes place near the end of Act 3, before certain key events.

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><p>Anders wakes in the night, the now refamiliar wool blanket scratchy against his skin.<p>

He wakes, alone, and realizes it's been two weeks since he's seen her.

Two weeks since he's seen her, and three weeks since he'd left, having not even realized he was leaving. But he had. He couldn't bear the frustration in her eyes that was becoming more and more her state of being and not just a momentary lapse when he was beyond even _her_ reach and lost to anger or sadness or pain…

He misses her. He had hoped he wouldn't, despite everything, but he should have known. The last time they'd been apart for more than a few days he'd not exactly flourished in her absence and had been waiting for her at the end of the week in their courtyard, unwilling to let her drop a single piece of luggage before he was pulling her in for an embrace that would not end until he'd reclaimed every last inch of her and given himself over in return.

_Then_ it had been fun…she'd missed him, too, and her strange little vacation with Aveline, Isabela and Merrill had done wonders to cheer her up after the grind of life in Kirkwall had worn her down to a jagged edge. _Then_ it had been like temporarily losing a nonessential body part that, nonetheless, one very much enjoyed having around. Like an eye. You could survive fine with one eye, but the world wasn't as remarkable without the other there to give it that last bit of depth.

He misses her arms around him when he's in moods like these, melancholy winding its way through his veins and burning his eyes with tears that pool but never fall. Duty calls to him, he has so _much_ to do and only a few days to finish. It's a deadline that looms like a great trap, a trap with paradise on the other side.

He won't make it past the iron teeth, or the noose, but perhaps others will slip through. He _hopes_ they will.

He hopes this sacrifice is worth it.

_Sacrifice_. He sits up on the cot and swings his too thin legs around to the floor. It's a word that gets thrown around a lot in their arguments…Hawke had accused him of willingly sacrificing her trust to accomplish his task, and when he didn't _have_ to. She was right _and_ wrong, but he'd not had a way to explain without…

He misses her. His chest aches and she'd at least try to make it hurt less. She'd try to make him laugh, or bring him a moment's comfort, or pleasure. She'd tie herself in knots for him, for the smallest moment of triumph over his increasing desperation and even though he knows it's unfair to expect such dedication, especially now, he's regretting walking away...he's regretting giving it up.

But he had. Given it up. He'd left three weeks ago and again a week later when she'd come by the clinic to lure him home.

_It's lonely without you, Anders_, she'd tried to smile and nearly succeeded. _There's hardly anyone trying to sleep on top of me, and the dog's getting fat off the dinners you're not around to eat. _

It had been as close as she would ever come to begging, and he'd simply turned away, unwilling. Unwilling to return to a life he wouldn't be able to give up twice, no matter how close he is to the end, unwilling to lose everything he'd been working towards since he'd came to Kirkwall, since he'd taken Justice into himself.

But he's also praying, in scrapes and half-thoughts. He still has patients, and when he's holding their lives between his palms, he catches glimpses of a future that might not be much of a future at all. He can't name it, or define it, or will himself to break it down for re-examination, but he's not stupid. Actions have consequences, and his own could break the world in two.

Which is another reason why he's in the undercity and not in Hightown right now. It's penance being paid in advance, because he knows his death alone will not be enough.

He's not just doing it for himself, though. Hawke loves this Anders, the one who is willing to answer any call at any time, the one who will stay up with a sick or injured child, telling her stories or singing her songs so that her mother can sleep, or tend to other children. No amount of offered coin or other favors will ever match the quiet pride in her eyes as she worked beside him, or offered sleepy good-bye drools when the clinic bell would sound in the parlor at some horrific hour of the morning.

He hopes someone tells her...it's selfish and so very unlikely, but he wants her to know. If nothing else, it might make her feel less rotted inside, like the man she'd loved was good at his core and not...whatever it is they'll call him.

Anders shoves those thoughts aside and dresses for the day. It's all automatic now, his mind going over plans and news and then...

_perhaps the knight-captain's report will be enough_

_There's_ a prayer, a dim but lingering fragment of hope that maybe...maybe...

_We're past the time for maybes...we've _been_ past the time for maybes and nothing will change that. Nothing _can_ change that._

"Anders! Ouch! _Balls_. Where the fuck are you, you _stupid_ mage?"

It's Isabela and it's panic and that's _not_ two things that go well together. Before he can respond, fists are pounding furiously against the backroom door, and he nearly ends up with an armful of rogue when he opens it and she spills against him.

"What are you doing here?" His tone is vaguely sardonic as he catches and rights her, but that's before he sees the dried blood that's caked in the rivets of her corset and staining the tunic underneath. "Andraste's ass...," voice dying in midsentence he finishes with a strangled noise, casting Isabela aside to rush towards where Aveline is arranging Hawke on one of the cots near the front of the clinic.

"I got her here as quickly as I could," the tall woman's face is filthy, meandering sweat tracks crossing her freckled cheeks and trailing down her neck. Like Isabela, Aveline is generously coated in coagulated blood.

He allows himself three full second of mad, crushing panic in which all he can see is Hawke's failed smile from two weeks earlier and all he can feel is the breaking within him as he'd left her again.

_I'm so sorry._

Then he's focus, his healing senses going out _Maker, Maker, let it be something I can heal_.

Fingers push her undershirt aside, and pull at the breast band beneath. Aveline turns away out of respect, but Isabela is clinging to Hawke's feet, her lips pressed tight and the skin around her eyes drawn in concern as he runs his palm along Hawke's abdomen, mentally probing beneath blackened skin and spasming muscle to feel for broken bones, or internal injuries. He can see where she'd been sliced open, along her left side. The wound is clotted with a mixture of dried blood and poultice. The skin along the edges is showing pink through the darkened grime and he knows he's dealing with an infection on top of blood loss.

Then he notices a fresh wound, a knot and a bruise just at her hairline..."Did you knock her head when you came in?" He tries not to sound accusatory.

"She was refusing to see you," Aveline does not return the favor, her gaze swinging to him, eyes narrowed and spitting cold fire. "Unfortunately, you're the only one I trust in these matters...so I had to do what I had to do."

He sighs and allows himself another three seconds to observe the battered body of the woman he loves and be stung by the fact that she'd rather suffer than see him, and to loathe himself for pushing her that far.

"Isabela, bring the bucket from the corner and all the towels. Aveline...my kit's on my desk and then you can get as many potions as you can carry...for both of us," settling into routine gives him a chance to distance himself from his emotions, although questions still come out in anguished whispers that he doesn't want answered.

Isabela does anyway, and he finds out that they'd been to Sundermount to visit Merrill's clan, gone an entire week without him ever knowing and the gash that he's closing with measured stitches and an abnormal amount of healing magic, came from a pride demon.

He doesn't need to ask why they were fighting a pride demon, nor does he wonder why Merrill isn't with them now. With any luck, she fared even worse than Hawke.

It's hours before he's at a point where he feels as though he's done everything he can. She's lost blood, but not so much that he's worried, and the wound has come together nicely enough as he covers it in clean linen, his fingers trembling from exhaustion and his chest aching again with a reality he can no longer set aside.

He misses her, as he allows his eyes to wander up to her face and see it and not her injuries. It's unnaturally still, neither smiling nor angry nor relaxed in sleep. He misses her, and he doesn't want to give her over to Aveline when she offers to carry her up to the house...

"I want her here...just in case," he responds defiantly, his hand going out to intervene.

It's Isabela who puts up the fight, knocking him away with _don't you fuck with me_ eyes and helping Aveline wrap her in a woolen blanket before taking her from the cot. Anders stands aside, helpless against the two women.

_She'll be fine_, he tells himself. She _will_. It's _Hawke_. But he's gotten used to thinking that, in some small way, she needs him as much as he needs her and it feels wrong to...

_let go_.

"It's just not how it works, Anders," Isabela isn't unsympathetic. "I'll tell her when she wakes up...and she'll do what she needs to do."

The _just like you_ is left unspoken, and Anders can't argue. He's the one who'd left, after all. _Twice_. And they're the ones who'd carried her down from a mountain, probably on an unwieldy stretcher and walking as fast as they can to get her to him, but not as the man who loves her, or even as the man _she_ loves.

As the healer...the only one in the city that they trust with their friend's health, but not her heart or even her safety.

And really, it's for the best, he thinks as he watches them navigate the incline up to Hawke's cellar door, his head pressed against the doorframe to his clinic. They can tell her that he was in his clinic, still there to save anyone who came through his door.

She loves that Anders...has promised to _always_ love that Anders. Maybe..._maybe_...

Aveline disappears into the cellar with Hawke, followed by Isabela who offers him a final, pitying, gaze.

Then they're gone.

He misses her...like both eyes gone and everything that has ever been worth feeling.

And it forces him to find some solace in the knowledge that he won't have to miss her for long.


	6. Languid

**Note from Surely:** F!Hawke. Anders. Smut.

Written for the BSN prompt group. This week the prompt is Languid.

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><p>She's a formless thing under a pile of blankets and furs she's burrowed within to escape the cold that's settled over Kirkwall like a razored veil. A wood shortage has resulted in even the wealthiest Marchers resorting to layers to keep warm, and she'd stopped keeping the fire in her room days ago, well before the order had gone out to do so.<p>

Anders disrobes, his breath barely visible in front of him, grey puffs on a charcoal blind. The sky beyond the high window over the bed is sharp, the moon a playfully bright mockery whose light seems to stop at the glass. A few minutes spent in its presence could kill a man, and it seems to be intent on seducing restless sleepers past windows to roofs and front stoops.

On another evening, Anders might be tempted to give in. Sometimes when he writes the words overlap and cross in front of him, what seemed precise, orderly and infallible only moments ago suddenly rendered into nonsense. The moon is his companion on those nights, illuminating the small courtyard behind their estate where he sits and stares and tries again to woo Lord Benneth's round-eyed grey piebald over with noiseless snaps and murmured pleas of _here kitty, kitty_.

But tonight is not a night to woo cats or freeze to death.

Naked, he slips carefully beneath the blankets, leaving the tiniest venting gap by their pillows and fits himself against her, nose nudging the hollow at the base of her throat and hand fitting beneath her arm and into the dip at the small of her back. Breath tickles the strands of hair along his forehead, and he rubs gently against her mouth to placate the creeping itch.

Breath is steady, heartbeat steady. She smells of the bath he'd drawn for her, that he'd warmed until steam curled off the surface and for a few minutes after she'd gotten in he'd done the same to her, caressing heat along the parts of her that could not be held under, her freckled cheeks and nose, their eyes locked over the gently peaking waves created from the steady rhythm of her hand acting on behalf of his own.

Now there's no need...his palm is flat against her back, his fingers stretched as far as they'll go. They bend up at the ends, along the muscles that are beginning to shift in silent acknowledgement of his presence. Her skin calls to his, nothing heard but felt in how he cannot hold still, searching her with his fingertips.

It's slow...his limbs already heavy with exhaustion, and he can feel the weight of the blankets bearing down on them, can feel the heat of this private space, the warmth of Hawke trapped for him as much as her, seeping into his muscles and making every push and nudge a process and profound.

He tastes her, his tongue drawn to the contours of her collar bone, to the gentle swell of her small breasts below and to the topography of her areolas as he takes them in turn, swirling down and around the hardening nipple, his lips a barrier so his teeth can hold them gently as he teases with all the languorousness of a cat cleaning itself in a summer sunbeam.

She's roused now and one leg drapes across his hip, her thigh settling along the bone so that her calloused foot can slide along the back of his calf and rub itself down until it fits like they're a puzzle. The arms she keeps tucked beneath her head is freed so that her fingers can sink and twist into his hair, affection and lust indistinguishable as she pets and pulls and guides his mouth up to hers, the meeting a crash in the silence as they simultaneously gasp upon contact, their lips pre-parted and their tongues moving with casual abandon matched only by the slow seeking of their freed hands.

She finds him in the dark, down a well-traveled path, and he breathes pleasure as she coaxes him to his full length, the press of her thumb echoing pleasure back along his shaft to a place deep within, where it unfurls at leisure, calm despite the displaced desire that ripples up his chest, down his legs, and forces pinpricks of light to dance across his vision.

Her teeth catch his lower lip as he draws their hips closer, forcing her to relinquish him and drag her nails up his side while his hand runs along the curve of her backside, dipping between the firm swell of her to part the heat-slicked flesh at her core. He works at her with slow, shallow passes of his fingertips that do little more than break the surface.

It's a tease and the foot at the back of his calf betrays yearning for more, as does the strangled noises that issue from her throat with growing regularity, not words but _need_ in vocal form, and he grants her a focused flow of magic, cool to contrast with the liquid fire that's replaced their blood and directed at the places within her that feel the most.

She jerks against him, grinding herself against his hip. He shifts his hand forward, deliberately seeking close but not quite _there_, and he continues to taunt with slow caresses and magic that spills into him, too, and makes him feel all the more connected to the writhing woman and the sinuous limbs that ensnare, encircle and hold him like a prize.

That's what she thinks he is.

Her mouth opens against his cheek, damp strands of hair interrupting the press of her lips along his jaw and her breath is no longer steady but ragged gasps and grunted exhalations. Below, he's rubbing himself along her stomach, the contour of her enough when he's this aroused that even the most minute twitch is a full and shuddering step towards the edge.

Nails prick his shoulder and _dig_ as her hips lock and hold in anticipation of him leading her over...

He withdraws his hand, allowing his fingers to drag back up along the curve of her bottom, to slowly trace cool over liquid hot skin and a faint mewl of disappointment gives way to anticipation when he runs his damp fingers over parted lips. In their cocoon, he introduces a flare, the light pure in the darkness and he sees her tonight for the first time, her eyes closed tight against sudden _bright_ but her face otherwise open to his interpretation.

_This is perfect,_ is what he sees there and he has to agree.

With nothing more than the pressure of his hip as he nudges it against the inside of her thigh, she tilts away just far enough for him to...

she smiles as he enters her, angling her back towards the bed, and the blossom of joy across her face is echoed in the trembling relief he feels when caught by her achingly familiar warmth.

Hands clasped behind his shoulders, her fingers lace at the base of his neck so she can keep him close. His own remain on her cheeks where he feels her expression against his palms even after he extinguishes the light, but only after her eyes flutter open to hold his in gratitude.

"I thought you were..._ah_." He withdraws with intense and excruciating indolence and then renters with a paradoxical fervor of lethargy. She folds around him but somehow manages words. "I thought you were claustrophobic."

He holds his response, choosing to use his tongue to trace the edges of her lips as they continue their lazy stroll towards release. Like breathing, if breathing could feel like a slow, searching hand that pulls his muscles tight and plays them as if they were the strings of a newly tuned lute, this is easy. Like breathing, if breath could burn and shiver and spark, this is what it means to be alive.

It's not always a way he feels, alive. But tonight he does, despite the dead, frozen world beyond the window pane. It could be the dark Hawke-scented bedcave he's in now, a perfect place where nothing needs to exist but them, their limbs like the sticky strong strands of a spider web that captures the tiniest amount of tension, the smallest touches, the softest breaths, and winds them back into the very fabric of who they are.

"This isn't an enclosed space," he murmurs against her throat, the building pressure in his groin spreading up along his stomach, to his chest and behind his eyes. Her fingers lose their grip on each other and dig into his back as if she might otherwise fall into blackness. "This is a vast place that's just _us_."

He speeds involuntarily, but it's still unhurried even when she spills out beneath him in what would be like sleep if he wasn't feeling the spasms wind themselves along his length, spiraling phantom tight until he joins her in completion. For a few moments he continues seeking her, inches gained and lost and refound, but only because it's easy

like breathing

and is what it means to be alive.

Eventually they're holding but not joined, although boundaries are impossible to discern in the heat and dark where they drift into a sleep that's somehow less restful than where they'd just been.

To the moon they're a formless thing under a pile of blankets and furs.


	7. Graffiti

Written for Flutiebear on tumblr!

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><p>There are no straight lines to guide him, but straight lines are overrated, Garrett thinks.<p>

"They're for people with no imagination," he says it with a profound sense of profundity, pulling his knife away so that he can admire his handiwork on the main pillar of the Hanged Man.

"_HAW?_" Anders squints up at the etching, which is admittedly overshadowed by a rather splendid pair of breasts, the artist of which having taken advantage of the natural contours of the wood to create impressive amounts of dimension and although Garrett can't blame Anders for _staring_, he wishes he would stop. "Um...," his eyes dart back to Garrett's face. " Let me guess- 'HAWKE WAS HERE- EVERY NIGHT FOR ALMOST A DECADE'."

"Heh. _You'll_ see," Garrett returns to his task, arm going up to support his weight as he continues and it's a smile that unfurls itself when he feels fingers catching the hem of his tunic, not to get his attention but to claim. He's been claiming all evening, his hands running along Anders' thigh, the intensity of his fondling growing in direct proportion to the number of times Evelyn sloshes ale on the table in front of them. "You have nice thighs," Garrett murmurs and is forced to catch a sigh before it escapes when Anders responds with exploration of his own, his palm sliding along the curve of Garrett's ass and his touch trailing intensity along the adjacent muscles.

_Be careful, Hawke. You're not hidden behind a table anymore, and Isabela is surely lurking about, ready to gawk and tease. _

But _careful_ is tricky when he's had so much to drink and not even Anders is minding his behavior this evening, his own stretch of table laden with mugs and the high pink of his cheeks, the gleam in his dark eyes and a grin that is half adoration, half insinuation makes it difficult for Garrett to focus his complete attention on his task.

Which leads to, "I thought Hawke was spelled with an _e_."

"Pardon?" Garrett continues to shape the next word, already on the second letter, his fingers brushing at the shavings as he goes. "Of course it has an _e_. We're people, not birds. Well, _I'm_ a person. They're still looking into Carver's situation."

Anders laughs at that and when Garrett glances down he loses all reference but one, the happy face of an unhappy man who is possibly learning to be otherwise. It's been almost a year, after all, and so many mornings start with this face, or a glimpse of this face, half-buried in a pillow as he draws Garrett closer, if closer is possible, and it seems like almost a year of excellent starts, of sleep-warmed tongues brushing along sensitive skin and lazy fumblings, should have started turning the tide of unhappy.

"Perhaps you should have Carver help, then," Anders props his elbow on the table and rests his cheek against his palm. "Because right now you _are_ talking about a bird. Plus, Carver seems like he'd be a natural...carver."

With another unsteady return to his work, Garrett sees the truth. "HAWK LO\" plain as plain and there is no room to cram an extra letter anywhere in there.

"_Balls_." His shoulders sag with the realization that there's probably a reason why most of the graffiti in the Hanged Man, with the exception of Isabela's many odes to the collective attractiveness of her friends, is absolute and incomprehensible _shit_. Something about the state necessary to think graffiti is a good idea being the precise state when things like grammar and the ability to correctly spell one's own name have faded into non-existence. So, of course, he blames Anders. "It's because you're watching me."

Anders is not offended. "I can only see it when you wobble left. For the most part, I'm watching your ass," the last is purred and accented with a sharp flick against the lower curve of Garrett's backside. "Isabela's right about this one."

"It is _luscious_," Garrett can hardly say the word without laughing. "And having you stare at _it_ isn't helping either," he feigns a pout that is no doubt undermined by the uncontrollable twitching at the corners of his mouth as it gives into mirth. "Eyeing me as if I'm nothing more than a piece of meat."

This gets Anders to his feet, even more unsteady a spectacle than Garrett on his knees on a barstool.

"It's never bothered _me_ to be viewed as such," he lifts his arms, still thin even after a year of rich breakfasts and multiple course dining, and jokingly flexes them. "Try not to _die_ of jealousy."

And he smiles a smile that is something like breathtaking. Most people who are _that_ drunk look as if they've been hit upside the head with a rank fish and are expecting it to happen again, and at any moment. Anders, though, is beatific in his flushed rumpledness, poking fun at himself as he watches his lover work and somehow never losing that halo of happy that seems less and less fleeting by the minute.

Garrett should stop. He should fall down from his stool and replace his knife with Anders' hand, to better guide him straight out of the Hanged Man and to their home and their bed and then do everything he can to prolong this mood, this magic that is more than loosened inhibitions- progress.

It's a moment he's been waiting for since that first one, when they met and Anders lived up to every image of renegade-Warden turned selfless-healer that Garrett could possible conjure and a few things, such as handsomeness, that he wasn't yet inclined to. Years of apart and longing, followed by a year of together and _still_ longing because together could only change so much and falling asleep protected and protecting in the arms of the person whose arms fit you so well resulted in excellent mornings but not a better world.

Some men were fine with excellent mornings, of simply being alive and not alone. Garrett, on most days, would happily stop there.

Anders, though, _wouldn't_. Couldn't. Can't and_ won't_. And that's _why_ the years of aching that no one else could satisfy. That's why the mornings _have_ to be so excellent, and why Garrett is drunk now and torn between the man and the gesture, which is a _foolish_ gesture but the most sincere.

As if sensing the indecision, Anders staggers back towards the pail closets, laughing and swearing that when _he's_ done, _Hawke's_ done.

And he is.

The unveiling is anti-climatic but the yield is perfect- an arm around Garrett's waist and that newfound light sustained as they stumble out of the Hanged Man together. Straight lines home are forgotten as secluded alleys and alcoves beckon them and their sated hearts become restless hands and lips that turn Lowtown into their home, when they know that the estate will be there when they need it, and the rough walls into their bed, Anders' doffed pauldrons sparing them scrapes on their cheeks, their knees, and the bed will embrace them when the time comes, when their very _not_ straight path finds them falling in together and waking up the same.

And an excellent morning will start, Anders' flushed face half-buried in a pillow and Garrett wishing that this could be their everything, this faultless tangle of breath and limbs, and later over sausage and eggs Anders will laugh, that beautiful sound from deep within him, and shake his head.

"HAWK LOVE ANDER? Really?"

"He does. And this _Ander_ is a lucky man to have it acknowledged in such a classy fashion."

"I know," his voice will be thick with everything those words mean, even as his mouth is still angled in a smile that proves the world has yet to reclaim him. "He really is."


End file.
